Electronic BioSciences (EBS) will begin examining the characteristics and interactions that will eventually enable nanopore based differentiation of peptides and amino acids. Although there are numerous components of a complete nanopore based protein characterization system that will ultimately need to be developed, during the course of this two year program EBS will focus solely on the detection and differentiation methodologies in order to demonstrate basic feasibility and proof-of-concept. The information generated from these studies will provide the foundation for developing the nanopore based protein characterization concept and eventually will lead to the development of cutting edge proteomics instrumentation.